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Deleting Safari History Does Not Remove All Traces Of A Website From Your iPhone

By: Marawan Alwaraki,
August 30, 2014

It’s common habit by many iPhone users to clear browsing history from safari. However the assumption usually is that this removes all evidence of visited websites from the iPhone. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

Your iPhone automatically stores website data, this is visible in the settings app. Website data is used to help improve your safari experience as it saves your data and loads it for you. The problem with this is that even when you clear your history, your website data remains visible from the settings app. This could expose certain websites you’ve visited in the past.

Don’t worry though, there’s always a solution!
First of all let’s check how the data can be accessed. Head over to Settings –> Safari –> Advanved –> Website Data.

As you can see, a list of websites I recently visited appear here. Clearing history from Safari itself won’t delete the website data. To clear website data and history you can click the Clear History and Website Data button in Settings –> Safari.

That’s it for today’s tip. If you’ve visited a private website and want to guarantee that no one will find out from your iPhone make sure you follow the steps above. Also, try this out on your friend’s iPhones to scare them!

What was your most embarrassing experience with Internet browsing history getting exposed?